As I lay here feeling the heavy breath of my sleeping seven week old on my chest, my mind wanders. How blessed I am, I know, to experience this. To feel her sweet, sweaty face on my skin. To smell her soft little head and kiss her gently. How blessed I am to have a toddler sleeping in the other room. God has been so good to us, and given us so much.
Yesterday, I was reminded of how precious my children are to me. Yesterday was October 15- National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. And two weeks from tomorrow marks a year from the day we lost a very early pregnancy.
It was Halloween. I was likely five or six weeks pregnant. But, strange as it may be, losing a child you barely knew doesn't soften the blow.
It hits you deep in the gut, pounding into the core of you each time you catch yourself dreaming of what you thought would be. It’s a wound that reopens each morning, as the memory of reality floods back. It’s a wound that stays tender much long after the impact. A wound that someday heals, but still scars, as a reminder of what was once there.
Tears flowed heavy that afternoon. My heart threatened to split in two. The rage was palpable in my body. And through the gut-wrenching sobs, the begging God to save my baby, the pleading to give me back the plans that I had made and the dreams that suddenly were put to an end, the same thought repeated in my mind.
"This isn't how it's supposed to be."
It's not supposed to be this way. It wasn't meant to be this way. Death and loss feels so tragic, so unnatural, so unfair, because that's exactly what it is.
It's easy to forget, I think, that death wasn't the original plan. It's easy to forget that God's design was for us to live and to keep living. Sin brought loss into the picture.
And so, we are living in this world that has death and heartbreak and loss. And it hurts. It hurts because it's not the way it was supposed to be.
Babies weren't meant to die. Mothers weren't meant to lose their children. Husbands weren't meant to comfort their grieving wives as they try to pick up the pieces of their own broken hearts.
God does not bring death. But in death, in sorrow and in loss, God remains good. He remains faithful. He doesn't turn away and tell us, "this is how it is." He doesn't leave us to mend ourselves back together. He doesn't excuse death and loss and ask us to be strong, or to gladly accept the pain.
Like a father who picks up his injured child, he holds us close, whispering gently, "I know you're hurt; I'm here."
In the middle of the loss, God was near. When my heart was screaming at him to let me have my baby, he held me close. He knew my heartache. He felt my pain. And he told me, "I know you're hurt; I'm here."
He didn't fix it for me. He didn't take away the hurt. But he never let me go. He was good then, in death. He was good still, when three weeks later, he gave us another life to care for. And he is good today, as that little life sleeps on my chest.
In death and in loss, God is there. In life and in blessings, He is there. In losing a child, whether at 5 weeks, or 14 weeks, or 38 weeks pregnant, He is there. He is good, he knows the hurt, and he is there. In allowing ourselves to be held by God, we can face the heartache of the world not being as it was meant to be. We don't have to bear the weight of that pain alone.
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